Archive for the 'Lake Forest' Tag Under 'Orange Punch' Category

I'm not sure yet what to make of the arrest of an owner-operator of a medical marijuana facility called 215 Agenda in Lake Forest, and two others. There certainly are operators of such facilities who operate outside the law, and the state law and guidelines issued by Attorney Gen. Jerry Brown, though they were developed in cooperation with patient advocates, have some ambiguities and shortcomings, IMO. On the other hand, given that it issued complaints against 35 facilities last year and has made it clear it wants to shut down all such operations in the city, it appears that Lake Forest is not all that interested in a good-faith effort to allow California's medical marijuana law to operate without unnecessary hindrance. A particular example of bad faith is the city attorney's invocation of federal law. The city is a subdivision of the state and its officials' job is to uphold state law, not federal law.

One thing is clear. If Mark Moen, 50, described as the owner, is convicted on all charges he could face 39 years in state prison. At a time of prison overcrowding and state budget crisis that would be a gross misuse of taxpayers' money. DAs routinely overcharge when filing charges, which gives them the option of whittling them down or plea-bargaining as a trial approaches, but that is ridiculous. He is also being held on $500,000 bail and must prove bail money comes from a legal source -- the money is presumed guilty until proven innocent, the reverse of proper legal procedure -- before it can be used to bail him out.

Part of the state law, SB 420, that tried (in good faith, I think) to systematize and regularize Prop. 215, passed by voters in 1996, has already been struck down by the state Supreme Court. The guidelines on quantities were deemed a legislative amendment to a proposition passed by voters, and under the state constitution a voter-passed proposition can only be amended by voters in a subsequent proposition. I wouldn't be surprised if another provision in SB 240 and the AG guidelines -- that dispensaries or facilities must be non-profit cooperatives -- were invalidated eventually. They arise from a widely held superstition that non-profit is somehow more noble and moral than profit-making. In a reasonably free economy profit comes from serving and satisfying customers. In non-profits where revenues exceed expenses fairly substantially, it generally goes to high salaries rather than being plowed back into the mission. Is that more noble or moral than owners who took risks reaping rewards? Are ordinary pharmacies required to be non-profit institutions?Moen is also facing 38 money-laundering charges. In a decent society there would be no such crime as money-laundering, and such charges are more often piling-on by prosecutors than evidence of actual wrongdoing. In addition, the charge that they didn't require purchasers to participate in collective activities or grow marijuana for others rests on what I think is a pretty shaky interpretation of the relevant laws and guidelines.

In the end, these kinds of prosecutions and campaigns against medical marijuana providers are likely to build support for the proposition that will be on the November ballot to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana for any use by adults in California. The voters tried to carve out an exception to the marijuana laws for bona fide patients, but official foot-dragging and bad-faith harassment has made that much more difficult than it had to be. An increasing number of people are ready to throw up their hands in the face of such official intransigence and say just legalize the stuff. Whether it will be a majority of Californians by November -- the campaign on either side hasn't gotten underway yet and it could get nasty and packed with lies and appeals to prejudice -- I'm not yet prepared to predict.